Sculpture

The Tree of Life

    The below image is from the book "The Making of Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park", by Melody Malmberg. 
 

The real history of The Concept, Design & Sculpting of Tree of Life at Disney's Animal Kingdom:

    For the record, I was not among the generally recognized "artists" at Imagineering when I was chosen by Joe Rhode to execute the sculptural design of the Tree. He made this decision after having Steve Humke and myself carve a sample section of The Tree between which he would judge who would be able to deliver the artistic feel he had in mind. He seemed adament that one person and one style should carry-out the effort.

 

    Just a few years ago, perhaps twenty years after the fact, I wrote Joe an email thanking him for the opportunity to sculpt the design of The Tree. I simply felt he deserved to hear that from me, as it had then struck me, even through all the disappoints at Disney, how it had been such a great honor, and it gave me an incredible sense of accomplishment ever since. Perhaps his response shouldn't have surprised me as much it initially did. He simply said he was only going with the person who he thought was best for the job (or something to that effect). It reminded me of how much I and others loved that about him. He was quite magnanomous, and although an incredibly adept politician, time and time again he was unswayed when it came to assigning and trusting the person who had been able to prove their ability and dedication.

 

    At the time, being a mere modelmaker, which Joe apparently couldn't care less about, it became painfully clear, from the time I started sculpting the model, up until two years later when I decided to bow-out after the sample rockwork program in Florida (for reasons to be discussed in detail at a later date, for the record) how certain others considered me unworthy or undeserving of the honor. In the end, although sculpting The Tree model was certainly the defining moment in my career (even up until now in 2024), it also turned-out to be quite the learning/eye-opening experience, both in terms of corporate politics, and what makes people tick etc. (where other similar surprises have been less and less shocking to me over the years), but also as a result of those challenges, and the stretching of myself to meet the task, not to mention with the love of others in my life, I was blessed to come to know what's infinitely more important, which of course is not at all about our ego-identity in this life, however enviable it might appear to others to be. 

 

    As a point of correction to the insert text on this photo, there was literally no "two-dimensional-art" or concept art created by anyone before I started my work, except for site plan views (looking straight down, in laymen's terms) developed by John Shields with the rough location of The Tree and the overall flow of the Island pathways and facilities etc., anmd then tyhere was a felt pen sketch Joe Rhode generated upon my request. That was at a point when I was blocking-out the based of the tree (using 4 lb, polyurathane foam), after several discussions about the general look of The Tree being that of a giant Bansai/Baobab, when I was feeling the need for some specific 2D art reference from Joe, in order to ensure I wouldn't veer too far from his vision. In literally two minutes, on a sheet of plain 11"x 17" bond paper, he whipped-up a sketch, which I referred to throughout the initial shaping of The Tree... before sculpting-in the animals. As loose as that sketch was, it aligned perfectly with my own vision, and I found it very helpful and even inspiring. From it I sketched the three other views -- back, left, and right, all of them I believe I still have filed away somewhere, since no one ever asked for any of my reference images or artwork, for the Imagineering archives.

 

    Then began the the work of sculpting the model. So there were only three paintings of The Tree which were created after my work was well underway; two were created by Joe and Dave Minichiello, which I eventually learned about by happenstance, and then finally Tom Gillean's official "Icon Painting", which he mostly did in the same high-bay area with me, when I was almost finished with the sculpt. That is, there was no other 2D or concept art for me to go by, aside from the quick line drawing mentioned earlier that Joe Rhode sketched for me. And no one questioned this, as Joe had let everyone know he trusted my artistic sense and vision, just as he also let me know throughout my time dedicated to the model sculpt. His encouragement and trust in me went a long way to keeping me inspired... very often working sixty or more hours per week.

 

    Perhaps the high point of my time working on The Tree was when Michael Eisner and Frank Wells came and sat observing my work, while I was carving, and as Joe entertained them with his spiel. I remember telling them I spent most of my time staring at it, looking for where the next animal would emerge. Toward the end, Frank Wells shook my hand and Mr. Eisner followed suit. As a sad side-note, Mr. Wells tragically died not long after that day in a helocopter crash on a ski trip in Colorado. I've always been deeply sadded about that, as I could tell he was a truly good and decent man. I've also more recently wondered what may have really happened -- having recognized the increasingly powerful role Disney has played in the media, and how Frank Wells reportedly represented Disney's purer sensibilities, which may have been viewed as an irritant... just as all truly good people with power and influence are viewed by the less noble in this world.

 

    It was towards the end of my sculpting when, due to scheduling demands, that Scott Goddard jumped in for a couple of weeks to add a few more animals here and there. By all accounts, the end result was very sucessful.

 

    Then came the time to begin the 3D documentation, which involved coating the foam, color-coding all of the animals, and slicing Tree into rougghly four-inch bocks, the shapes of which would be recorded digitally. This was before 3D scanning, so it was a painstaking process which required drawing a felt pen grid pattern across each of the blocks and then recording those lines on a computer in 3D space. That information was later sent to Florida and fed into a computer-controlled rebar bending machine to create the bent bars which would be tied together with wire at the grid intersections, to build the fullsize grid pattern, for each roughly eight-foot cube (as the model was 1/2" = 1' scale). Those cubes (which were of course often far from cubic in shape) were transported (very often by heliocopter), from the rebar bending and fabrication facility, in Florida, to the site, and stacked and tied together, to rebuild The Tree of Life skeleton, now full-size. I am only explaining this as a matter interest to the reader. I was not involved in the full-size production of The Tree, after the two-week long sample program, after which it was made abundantly clear I was not wanted by the man who was leading the Rockwork effort.

 

    His name is unimportant. He knows who he is, and although, more than anyone else, he crippled my prospects for further work as a designer at Disney. Without knowing me at all and out of nowhere, he insulted me on several occasions, and with an almost incomprehensible hubris and arrogance of the pot calling the kettle black, lied to himself and others that I had too big an big ego etc. As I quickly realized, the only possible reason for this was because, when The Tree was finished in the field, he wanted all the glory... As difficult as that may be to believe, there is really no more to it than that, because that was who he was. Most everyone recognized it about him, as it was so sadly evidenced by how, wherever possible, he made sure to be front-and-center in every picture ever taken at Disney, where he might thus have been recognized as most important.

 

    He never spent more than a few minutes dropping by the model to see what he had been told would be his next gig, after he finished his work on the Caldera for Tokyo Disneyland. When he did, he returned to Florida where I had also gone about a week and a half earlier. 

    That was really the beginning of my career as a figurative and rockwork sculptor at Imagineering. Ever since then I have been primarily focused on sculpture work, and over the past ten years or so, working almost exclusively in the digital realm, mostly with ZBrush and Rhino. However, now at home and soon to be retired, I'm moving on toward my lifelong dream of painting... and writing and....

    I've always been more of a visual observer, but I've also been accused of "thinking too much"... and while this can certainly be a stumbling-block at times in everyday life, perhaps it's not so much in my art and my writing, 

 

    Both my art and my writing is inspired by a growing love for and gratitude toward God, as well as Family, and my fellow Americans, as I have sought to explore and uncover the truth, both to deepen my own understandings, and hopefully lead others to the same rewards.